This introductory chapter is an overview of Hawaiian national art and their origins, how colonial forces have shaped these art objects, and the role they play in Hawaiian culture. In particular, it ...
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This introductory chapter is an overview of Hawaiian national art and their origins, how colonial forces have shaped these art objects, and the role they play in Hawaiian culture. In particular, it looks at the manifestations of national culture brought about during the reign of David Kalākaua. While his reign of seventeen years was not the longest in early modern Hawaiian history, it witnessed an explosion of creative activity centered in the kingdom's capital, Honolulu. This king sought to instill a sense of cultural and national pride among Native Hawaiians, notably through literature and the visual and performing arts. In fact, his reign has been described as “The First Hawaiian Renaissance.” Some of the cultural and national projects associated with his reign have had lasting impact on Hawaiian communities and are today cherished symbols of Hawaiian culture and history.Less

Hawaiian National Art

Stacy L. Kamehiro

Published in print: 2009-07-27

This introductory chapter is an overview of Hawaiian national art and their origins, how colonial forces have shaped these art objects, and the role they play in Hawaiian culture. In particular, it looks at the manifestations of national culture brought about during the reign of David Kalākaua. While his reign of seventeen years was not the longest in early modern Hawaiian history, it witnessed an explosion of creative activity centered in the kingdom's capital, Honolulu. This king sought to instill a sense of cultural and national pride among Native Hawaiians, notably through literature and the visual and performing arts. In fact, his reign has been described as “The First Hawaiian Renaissance.” Some of the cultural and national projects associated with his reign have had lasting impact on Hawaiian communities and are today cherished symbols of Hawaiian culture and history.

This chapter considers the introduction and history of the Spanish guitar within the political and cultural contexts of the Hawaiian Kingdom during the mid- to late-eighteenth century. It ...
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This chapter considers the introduction and history of the Spanish guitar within the political and cultural contexts of the Hawaiian Kingdom during the mid- to late-eighteenth century. It demonstrates the musical dynamism in Honolulu, in the Kamehameha Schools, and in other places in the Hawaiian Islands that prefigured the development of the Hawaiian steel guitar, and it contextualizes the emerging Hawaiian “guitar culture,” then, that Hawaiians deployed to resist American efforts to undermine the kingdom. It also features the tensions between Calvinist missionaries, foreign sailors, and Hawaiians over hula and other musical practices, including hula ku‘i, a form of Hawaiian musical expression promoted by King David Kalākaua and defined by the use of guitars, ‘ukuleles, taro patch fiddles, and other stringed instruments newly utilized in the Islands.Less

Guitar Culture In The Hawaiian Kingdom

John W. Troutman

Published in print: 2016-05-16

This chapter considers the introduction and history of the Spanish guitar within the political and cultural contexts of the Hawaiian Kingdom during the mid- to late-eighteenth century. It demonstrates the musical dynamism in Honolulu, in the Kamehameha Schools, and in other places in the Hawaiian Islands that prefigured the development of the Hawaiian steel guitar, and it contextualizes the emerging Hawaiian “guitar culture,” then, that Hawaiians deployed to resist American efforts to undermine the kingdom. It also features the tensions between Calvinist missionaries, foreign sailors, and Hawaiians over hula and other musical practices, including hula ku‘i, a form of Hawaiian musical expression promoted by King David Kalākaua and defined by the use of guitars, ‘ukuleles, taro patch fiddles, and other stringed instruments newly utilized in the Islands.

This chapter illustrates how the relationship between sailors and Hawaiians helped to foster the new sound of Native Hawaiian culture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Hawaii's ...
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This chapter illustrates how the relationship between sailors and Hawaiians helped to foster the new sound of Native Hawaiian culture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Hawaii's last king, David Kalākaua, was influenced by sailors' songs and minstrelsy, and his maritime adventures contributed to his policy of promoting indigenous Hawaiian music. The chapter also examines the works of the early hapa haole songwriter Joseph K. A'ea, a close friend of Queen Lili'uokalani and member of the Royal Hawaiian Band, who based at least one of his earliest popular songs on the lyrical, rhythmic, and melodic characteristics of the nineteenth-century sea chantey.Less

“Honolulu Hula Hula Heigh” : The Legacy of Maritime Music in Hawai‘i

James Revell Carr

Published in print: 2014-11-01

This chapter illustrates how the relationship between sailors and Hawaiians helped to foster the new sound of Native Hawaiian culture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Hawaii's last king, David Kalākaua, was influenced by sailors' songs and minstrelsy, and his maritime adventures contributed to his policy of promoting indigenous Hawaiian music. The chapter also examines the works of the early hapa haole songwriter Joseph K. A'ea, a close friend of Queen Lili'uokalani and member of the Royal Hawaiian Band, who based at least one of his earliest popular songs on the lyrical, rhythmic, and melodic characteristics of the nineteenth-century sea chantey.

This book offers an account of Hawaiian public art and architecture during the reign of David Kalākaua, who ruled the Hawaiian Kingdom from 1874 to 1891. The book provides visual and historical ...
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This book offers an account of Hawaiian public art and architecture during the reign of David Kalākaua, who ruled the Hawaiian Kingdom from 1874 to 1891. The book provides visual and historical analysis of Kalākaua's coronation and regalia, the King Kamehameha Statue, ‘Iolani Palace, and the Hawaiian National Museum, drawing them together in a common historical, political, and cultural frame. These cultural projects were part of the monarchy's effort to promote a national culture in the face of colonial pressures, internal political divisions, and declining social conditions for Native Hawaiians. The book interprets the images, spaces, and institutions as articulations of the complex cultural entanglements and creative engagement with international communities that occur with prolonged colonial contact. Nineteenth-century Hawaiian sovereigns celebrated Native tradition, history, and modernity by intertwining indigenous conceptions of superior chiefly leadership with the apparati and symbols of Asian, American, and European rule. The resulting symbolic forms speak to cultural intersections and historical processes, claims about distinctiveness and commonality, and the power of objects, institutions, and public display to create meaning and enable action. The book pursues questions regarding the nature of cultural exchange, how precolonial visual culture engaged and shaped colonial contexts, and how colonial art informs postcolonial visualities and identities.Less

The Arts of Kingship : Hawaiian Art and National Culture of the Kalakaua Era

Stacy L. Kamehiro

Published in print: 2009-07-27

This book offers an account of Hawaiian public art and architecture during the reign of David Kalākaua, who ruled the Hawaiian Kingdom from 1874 to 1891. The book provides visual and historical analysis of Kalākaua's coronation and regalia, the King Kamehameha Statue, ‘Iolani Palace, and the Hawaiian National Museum, drawing them together in a common historical, political, and cultural frame. These cultural projects were part of the monarchy's effort to promote a national culture in the face of colonial pressures, internal political divisions, and declining social conditions for Native Hawaiians. The book interprets the images, spaces, and institutions as articulations of the complex cultural entanglements and creative engagement with international communities that occur with prolonged colonial contact. Nineteenth-century Hawaiian sovereigns celebrated Native tradition, history, and modernity by intertwining indigenous conceptions of superior chiefly leadership with the apparati and symbols of Asian, American, and European rule. The resulting symbolic forms speak to cultural intersections and historical processes, claims about distinctiveness and commonality, and the power of objects, institutions, and public display to create meaning and enable action. The book pursues questions regarding the nature of cultural exchange, how precolonial visual culture engaged and shaped colonial contexts, and how colonial art informs postcolonial visualities and identities.

In this chapter, the author explains how the song “Ua Noho Au A Kupa I Ke Alo” ended up providing the infrastructure for his approach to conducting research with Indigenous peoples. “Ua Noho Au A ...
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In this chapter, the author explains how the song “Ua Noho Au A Kupa I Ke Alo” ended up providing the infrastructure for his approach to conducting research with Indigenous peoples. “Ua Noho Au A Kupa I Ke Alo,” composed by King David Kalākaua, who ruled the kingdom of Hawaiʻi from 1874 to 1891, describes attitudes that are deemed essential to the methodology by which research in general should be conducted. The author considers terms from King Kalākaua's mele that embody important mannerisms necessary to investing in lasting relationships with what he calls “mentors”: kūpuna (elders), community participants, practitioners, and teachers when conducting research. These terms include “kupa,” “kamaʻāina,” “alo,” and “leo.”Less

Ua Noho Au A Kupa I Ke Alo

R. Keawe Lopes

Published in print: 2015-10-31

In this chapter, the author explains how the song “Ua Noho Au A Kupa I Ke Alo” ended up providing the infrastructure for his approach to conducting research with Indigenous peoples. “Ua Noho Au A Kupa I Ke Alo,” composed by King David Kalākaua, who ruled the kingdom of Hawaiʻi from 1874 to 1891, describes attitudes that are deemed essential to the methodology by which research in general should be conducted. The author considers terms from King Kalākaua's mele that embody important mannerisms necessary to investing in lasting relationships with what he calls “mentors”: kūpuna (elders), community participants, practitioners, and teachers when conducting research. These terms include “kupa,” “kamaʻāina,” “alo,” and “leo.”

ʻĪʻī’s life from 1854 until spring of 1868, which covers his service to Alexander Liholiho (Kamehameha IV); this mō‘ī’s death; and the ascension of Lot Kapuāiwa (Kamehameha V). During these years, ...
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ʻĪʻī’s life from 1854 until spring of 1868, which covers his service to Alexander Liholiho (Kamehameha IV); this mō‘ī’s death; and the ascension of Lot Kapuāiwa (Kamehameha V). During these years, ‘Ī‘ī faced the challenges of dealing with a new generation of aliʻi coming into power. His life would continue to be marked by the deaths of people he had either known in his youth or come to love in his adulthood. This chapter closes with ʻĪʻī’s forced retirement in 1868, after systematic efforts to oust him from the government.Less

Marie Alohalani Brown

Published in print: 2016-05-31

ʻĪʻī’s life from 1854 until spring of 1868, which covers his service to Alexander Liholiho (Kamehameha IV); this mō‘ī’s death; and the ascension of Lot Kapuāiwa (Kamehameha V). During these years, ‘Ī‘ī faced the challenges of dealing with a new generation of aliʻi coming into power. His life would continue to be marked by the deaths of people he had either known in his youth or come to love in his adulthood. This chapter closes with ʻĪʻī’s forced retirement in 1868, after systematic efforts to oust him from the government.